Have you seen my scooter?
Two unrelated (yet related) news items from the past couple of days:
* New Census Bureau report shows that 36.5 million Americans were living in poverty in 2006 — 5 million more than six years before. Poverty line for a family of 5 is $24,130.
* White House Press Secretary Tony Snow, who has a wife and 3 kids, resigns his position because he says his family can't afford to live on his salary of $168,000/year. Tony Snow currently earns 7 times the poverty level for a family of 5...and still supposedly can't get by.
Draw your own conclusions.
Check out this announcement from the City today:
Now Accepting Paper Products!
The City of Charlottesville’s recycling service continues to expand to meet needs of our customers and citizens. Beginning this week, customers can now leave the following paper products loosely in their bin: catalogues, magazines, phone books, junk mail, office paper (white, colored, computer, and notebooks), paper bags and newspapers (including inserts). The City asks that residents put all loose paper in a paper bag and try to avoid placing these items out for pickup when inclement weather is expected.
One more step toward a greener Charlottesville...
From today's Danville Register & Bee, we have word that Virgil Goode has given $1,000 to the Duncan Hunter for President campaign because of Rep. Hunter's strong stand against illegal immigration. Hey, no surprise there. Hunter is drawing a harder line on immigration than most, however -- he even, according to the article, "supports preventing illegal immigrants from running for president." Yeah, you know, we've gotta crack down on that sort of thing, given all of the...uh, illegal immigrants who are just clamoring to...uh, you know, run for president and take over the country and stuff.
There are straw men, and then there are straw men. This one (almost) takes the cake.
As the City of Charlottesville continues to expand our curbside recycling program (stay tuned for another big announcement on that front soon!), I'm very happy to report that the Charlottesville City Schools have launched a major new system-wide recycling program of their own. It's called "Recycling is Everyone's Responsibility."
As a parent and an environmentalist, it always bugged me that our schools did not have a recycling program in place before now. Certain teachers or student groups would voluntarily collect and dispose of recyclables here and there, but it took the leadership of our current School Board and Superintendent Rosa Atkins (working in tandem with our City Public Works Dept.) to make recycling a school-wide priority. Special thanks go to Buford Middle School teacher Renata Germino and Mayor David Brown for their efforts to encourage this change.
This program will divert tons of recyclable materials out of our waste stream and into productive re-use. More importantly, it will help instill the value of recycling in our schoolchildren and help them grow into more environmentally-conscious citizens. Great work Charlottesville schools!
left of center with Julian Bond
Crossing the Color Line: From Rhythm and Blues to Rock & Roll
Tuesday. September 4th.
7pm. Buford Middle School - Auditorium
Join us for a very special evening with Mr. Julian Bond. In “Crossing the Color Line,” Mr. Bond presents the civil rights movement through a history of American music. He traces the melding of jazz, blues, country music and pop into rock & roll, stopping along the way to examine the influences of race, demographics, war, immigration and technology in this transformation.
From his student days as a founder of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee to his former position as Chairman of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Mr. Bond has been a leader inthe movements for civil rights, economic justice, racial equality and peace. The holder of twenty honorary degrees, he is a Distinguished Professor at American University in Washington, D.C., and a Professor of history at the University of Virginia.
This is a free event. Questions? Contact us at leftofcentercville@gmail.com. Or check out our website at http://www.leftofcentercville.org/. Left of Center is a Charlottesville, Virginia group of mostly twenty- and thirty-something local Democrats or dem-curious people.
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Unfortunately, I have a City Council meeting that night, so I cannot attend... :-( If you go, let me know what you thought!
Over the past 6-7 years about a dozen friends (myself included) have purchased homes on Early St. in Belmont as the houses have gone on the market. It's a nice street, just a 15-minute walk from the Downtown Mall and a 3-minute walk to Belmont Park. Most of the houses here were built in the 1920-30s as starter homes for millworkers at the Ix factory. The homes are on the small side compared to your typical Modern American McMansion, but they each have their charms. Mine, for instance, was outfitted with a fully-functional bomb shelter in the early 1960s (in the wake of the Cuban Missile Crisis) and it's fascinating crawling down there and seeing how people planned to live in the event of an atomic holocaust.
Anyhow, getting back to my point -- folks here on Early St. look out for each other, our kids play together, we have block parties, we share tools, there's talk of a community garden -- you get the idea. Just recently another house (two doors up from mine) went on the market. If you think you'd like to join in the Early St. fun, please check it out!
1401 Early St., listed for $199,000. Agent is Mary Newton of Keller Williams Realty. For more info., see the property's CAAR listing.
Yesterday an individual on a local news blog opined that a particular circuit court judge "deserves to be shot." Some, presumably including the blog's host (who has chosen not to delete the post), apparently believe that there is a place for such filth in our public discourse. They say the poster was just "stating his opinion" and not actively calling for the judge to be assassinated. I'm not sure I understand the difference between 'that judge should be shot' and 'someone should shoot that judge.' I guess it's all in the tense. Where do you draw the line? Or perhaps there is no line anymore. Maybe I'm just missing something.
I'm not sure which is sadder, that certain people harbor such hatred and violence in their hearts or that certain news organizations feel obligated to give them a forum for airing direct, personal threats against the lives of others.
This past year, the dozens of area congregations and thousands of area residents involved in IMPACT spent a lot of time studying local needs, and eventually chose their top two priorities for community action: expanding affordable housing and improving public transportation.
At tomorrow night's City Council meeting, we will be receiving a major new report from the Charlottesville/Albemarle Commission on Children and Families. The product of an extensive, year-long study of local needs, this report (which is Part Two of CCF's Human Services Strategic Plan for our region) concludes that the top two priorities for community action are: expanding affordable housing and improving public transportation.
I think these groups are trying to tell us something, but I just...can't...figure...out...what...it...is. :-)
At our City Council meeting tomorrow night (Monday, Aug. 6), we will be taking a big step forward in the revitalization of Jefferson School. It's been a long time coming. Assuming Council approves conveyance of the property to the non-profit partnership that has been established to renovate and redevelop the historic building, Jefferson School will be on its way to reclaiming a new life as a cultural, educational and recreational center. If you're not aware of the importance of this historical landmark to our community (and to our African-American community in particular), the City has some good info. up on its website.
Pardon me a brief digression. In all my years of collecting postcards, in which time I have probably seen over 1,200 different images of life in Cville, I have never come across a single postcard image that features, in any prominent way, a building or business or church or school or park or neighborhood "belonging" to Charlottesville's African-American community. You do see local African-Americans pictured as maids:
Village Cabins, circa 1940
And as waiters:
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